Research Paper Example: The Ebonics Controversy

Introduction

Ebonics is a merger of two words that is ebony and phonics and this is what comes to form what is referred to as black English. This language was brought to light by a psychologist known as Robert Williams in the year 1973.

How it started

The Ebonics controversy started when the board of school of Oakland Unified School District, Oakland, California in the united states passed a resolution identifying the legitimacy of Ebonics, which was referred to as African American Vernacular English, as an African language. It was to be identified as language on its own and not just a parlance of English. Therefore, this language was benchmarked as the primary language of the students from African-American backgrounds in this schools. After this declaration, there was a lot of emotion that was sparked which led to a lot of criticism from the media and it soon became a nationwide debate.

The boards intent

The Oaklands school board intent was to provide a way to better the education of the African-American students in their schools. It was noticed that most of the African American students repeated a grade, were truants, got suspended and generally had a low score point in the examinations that they did. Therefore, the introduction of Ebonics was to help the students better how they performed in class and how they attended different classes.

After this declaration, there was a lot of media frenzy surrounding this controversy because many people believed that the declaration of Ebonics as a language on its own, would impact the African -American community negatively instead of causing a positive impact as per how the school had hoped this declaration would impact.

The media frenzy

There were different opinions on the media regarding this declaration. The New York Times came out to say that this declaration would stigmatize the African-American children and talk a segregated language would make them miss out on many opportunities including finding decent jobs.

The frenzy on the media went on as it was said that this would also alienate the kids from the rest of the world as they would be speaking a language that even the African people couldn't understand and the Americans couldn't understand too. Moreover, it was argued that the students already spoke and understood English very well, an instead of introducing a whole new language they should try and better the English that the children were already speaking.

They went on to say that if the Ebonics language was introduced then the children would not put any effort to learn the standard English completely. All this media frenzy eventually ended making an influence on the Oakland school board who ended up amending this law eventually and rethinking the approach they would use in order to provide an even playing ground for the African American children.

The resolve

After this whole controversy, the Oakland school saw it best to amend the declaration they had originally drafted acknowledging that the language was genetically based because it was considered very racial and segregating. They, therefore, replaced this phrase by acknowledging that the language African Americans spoke had its origins from West and Niger-Congo and that it was not merely a parlance of English.

Many people began to accept the broken English that the African-Americans spoke as their norm language and did not discriminate them when they spoke it. The allegations that were made that the teachers in this schools taught this language or encouraged it were seen as false. Most teachers said that the children came to them speaking this language and they couldnt just send them away because they couldnt construct sentences in plain Standard English.

The teachers would try to teach the children basic English and when they spoke Ebonics they would correct it to basic English. Initially, the resolution had sparked a lot of negativity and anger from many people but this became a positive resolution afterward as Ebonics was now not treated as not knowing English but a mere expression of how they spoke. Many children, however, were open to learning standard English because the teachers respected the Ebonics that they spoke. (Baugh, 56).

However, the main controversy that erupted from the Oakland school district board was that people thought that Ebonics was now going to be taught in class to the Ebonics in that school and that would yield discrimination. The board merely wanted Ebonics to be taken into account as a language and respected while teaching the basic English in class.

Could the controversy be avoided?

The original resolution that was put forth by the board caused the whole controversy and it would have been avoided if it had been put out the right way. Yes, the board had good intentions as it was passing that resolution but how it was executed and delivered to the public came out as an attack on the African-American children and community in general.

The board should have made it clear originally that introducing Ebonics into the school was pure as an intention of trying to help the African-American students learn but not as a discriminatory move on the African-American children.

The issue of ethnicity and the language that people speak is a very sensitive issue that should be approached with a lot of care and handled cautiously. Therefore, the board should have thought through it thoroughly before coming up with the resolution that they came up with. The affected party should have been consulted prior to making any decisions especially making them a nationwide and public affair, (Labor, 1973).

The Oakland schools could have recognized the problem that the African-American children were experiencing in school and being in administration they should have resolved the issue internally. Instead of coming out and pinpointing the issue of Ebonics they should have made more effort to teach basic standard English to the children. They should have also embraced the broken-English that they spoke and corrected it as they taught in class, and by doing that the children would have felt more welcomed.

Many controversies can be avoided when situations are analyzed carefully before acting. After the Ebonics controversy was revisited in 2007 we see that some of the people who were originally against originally switched sides and finally supported the resolution. This shows that if the original resolution was handled slowly without people jumping to conclusions then the original controversy that existed would have been avoided.

Language variation

Language variation is in general referred to as linguistics. There are different ways of saying the same thing and this is influenced by the following things; someones pronunciation or accent, the words you choose to use and ones grammar. Language variation thus works towards investigating why people talk the way that they do. This can be attributed to by different social characteristics, the surrounding of a person and the cultural way of pronunciation.

When the Ebonics controversy was revisited in 2007 by sociolinguists a lot of sense was made in trying to understand what the Oakland school district board had tried to propose originally. This was because sociolinguist understood the challenges that the African American students faced because of speaking broken English, (Green, 2002).

Instead of profiling people because of how they talk and articulate their words, language variation provides a level field where people are able to understand why people speak the way they do and accept that as their heritage.

The knowledge of language variation thus would have played a major positive role during the original resolution of the Ebonics controversy. Many children who struggle to learn standard English because they are discriminated for speaking broken and lazy English, would be helped to recognize that the language they speak is a heritage vernacular language just like any other native community in the united states.

People would have been told of the importance of accepting someones vernacular before telling someone that another language was better than the language that they previously spoke. Often as human beings, we tend to ease up to new things and spread our normally constrained norms about a taboo subject when people try to understand us first.

This is why people visit psychologists and therapist and end being helped because a therapist understands you regardless of what you tell them about the things you have done or the things that you think about and the way that you are as an individual. A therapist will always listen to you and understand you before their opinions on a particular subject. By doing this they make their clients and patients open up and are ready to be helped.

Therefore, using the same therapist analogy and applying it to the language variation, we see that students would be willing to learn the basic standard English once people stopped marginalizing them on the language that they speak and embraced their vernacular culture. After accepting their vernacular then trying to teach them English, it would not be looked at as a way of trying to change how they speak but instead, it would be embraced as a new topic or a subject.

Standard English is important as it forms a common/level field when it comes to interactions with everyone. Many people come from different native backgrounds. Although keeping and preserving their vernacular heritage is highly appreciated and recommended, as it forms a base that one can identify themselves with. In an environment where different native backgrounds are mixed in one place, its advisable to form a basic common lingo that can be understood by everyone.

In the United States, Standard English is used as the common language. This is why teaching Standard English is recommended because in workplaces, schools and any social interaction events English is used. Language variation, therefore, is used as a stepping stone towards appreciating the vernacular heritage and through that, people become open to learning other languages.

During the period of the Ebonics controversy, language variation would have played a great role and it would have even prevented the resolution by Oakland school district board from becoming a controversy and such a huge feud that was spiraled by the media frenzy that it created. Sociolinguists would have worked towards showing the public that this was a move to reduce the inequality between the African-Americans and the native white people of Oakland and thus would have drastically reduced that social gap.

Years later after the sociolinguist revisited the Ebonics controversy resolution they found out that the idea was forward-thinking, practical, pedagogically sound and progressive. Language variation would have been the best tool to use the board's resolution.

Conclusion

Many situations usually escalate to levels they shouldn't have escalated to in the first place because of lack of proper communication and misunderstanding of issues. The first step towards implementing a hard issue is good dialogue and openness to understand all parties involved.

As stated in the above essay, an easy situation was spiraled because of communicating it the wrong way. The Oakland district school board was trying to help a situation but ended up causing a controversy instead. They had stated that Ebonics was to be taken as a dialect of English which angered many people.

This was later amended and they recognized Ebonics...